Times as Hard as These
by solo lolo
Summary: Artemis Black's Sirius' twin sister. She's just trying to get through school along with her best friends Lily, Rose and Willow. But can they survive in times as hard as these? Rated T for language and sexual refrences, nothing too bad though.
1. Prologue

**Artemis Black**

**Prologue:**

Life is hard, everyone knows that. You lose people who are close to you, they die, leave, dissappear.

Family should stick together through hard-times not hate each other.

My family can't stand me. I only have Sirius left.

Friends come and go, they're easy to find, but best-friends are hard to come by, and when you do find someone you consider your best-friend it should be for life, or else you were never that strong in the first place.

My best-friends, Lily Evans, Rose Potter and Willow Malone, my brothers, Sirius and Regulus Black, and those who I consider family, Remus Lupin and James Potter, they all mean everything to me, and my world would collapse without them, Lily and Remus are the calm collected ones who keep me sane, Rose and JAmes are the ones I need to look out for, they bring out my sense of responsibility, Willow and Sirius are there to help me go crazy, not that I need help with that. Regulus is my baby brother who's gone wrong in life, I just hope he changes his mind before it's too late.

My name is Artemis Black, and this, is my story.


	2. WHAT?

Lily Evans screamed as her best friend Rose threw a bucket of cold water over her.

"You are dead!" She screamed running after her friend.

Their other friend Willow laughed at them. She was sitting on a deck chair by

Lily's pool reading a book.

Willow lifted her sun glasses off her head and watched her friends race around the pool.

Suddenly Rose turned around and picked up her smaller friend. Lily screamed as Rose dropped her in the pool.

Rose giggled and dived gracefully in after her friend. Willow rolled her eyes and went back to her book.

One of the windows above them opened, "LILY." Lily's older sister Petunia yelled out the window. "There's someone at the door."

"Arty." Lily smiled as she climbed out. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her waist and went to get the door.

"Hello Evans." James Potter stood at the door, Sirius Black standing

beside him, smirking and James' mother behind them.

"Oh hello boys, come on in." Lily's mother invited them all in.

"Thank you so much Helen." Mrs. Potter thanked Mrs. Evans for reasons unknown to Lily.

"It's no trouble at all Grace." Mrs. Evans replied smiling.  
"Mum?" Lily looked at her mother.

"I've invited the boys to stay until the start of term." Mrs. Evens smiled tightly at her daughter silently telling her to behave.

Lily forced a smile and turned to face Mrs. Potter "Lovely."

…...

"LILY DOOR!" Petunia screamed out the window once again.  
James and Sirius turned from where they were messing in the pool to look up at the window.

"I'm going. I'm going." She ran inside.  
Almost ten minutes later she re-emerged with Artemis Black behind her.

Artemis Black, had long black curly hair and gray eyes. She was wearing black board shorts and a plain black bikini top.

"ARTY" Rose and Willow screamed jumping up to hug their best friend. Artemis laughed, trying unsuccesfully to remove herself from her friends grasp.

When they finally let go, she spotted her brother and James in the pool, "Hey guys" She greeted, not surprised to see them there.

"ARTEMIS BLACK!" Lily rounded on Artemis, "DID YOU KNOW THEY WERE GOING TO BE HERE?" She asked, yelling.

"Yep!" Artemis replied simply, she ran and dived into the pool before Lily could say anything else.

Rose followed quickly, so that Lily didn't focus her anger on her.

They all hung out by the pool for the rest of the day, until Lily's mother called them for dinner.

"So girls, I suppose you all want to share a room." Lily's mother said halfway through dinner.

Lily, Artemis, Rose and Willow all nodded.

"Do you boys mind sharing a room?" She asked Sirius and James.

They both shook their heads, "Not at all, Mrs Evans." Sirius said politely.

They all began to talk, Artemis, James and Sirius took Mr. Evans through the rules of quidditch and in turn, Mr. Evans taught them about football.

Willow and Mrs. Evans talked about normal muggle things like the news (Willow's father was a muggle) and Lily and Rose talked about school work.

"Where's Petunia?" Willow asked suddenly, noticing that Lily's older sister was missing.

"She's staying at her boyfriend's tonight." Lily muttered. "She didn't want to be here."

Artemis shot Lily a sympathetic look across the table but Lily just shrugged.

ARTEMIS' POV:

Lily's room was pitch black, I could hear Willow and Rose's soft snores coming from their camp-beds.

I rolled over in my own bed to face Lily's. I could just barely make out her outline under the covers.

She was tossing and turning, I knew she'd had another night mare. I got up slowly and made my way across the room, careful not to trip over our trunks which we'd just left in the middle of the floor.

"Lily." I whispered when I reached her bed. She jumped violently and let out a muffled scream.

"It's just me." I whispered, climbing in next to her. "Are you okay?" I asked softly.

Silence.

"Lily, it's dark I can't see you if you nod." I teased, guessing she's nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She muttered, pulling the blanket closer to her. I'd slept in the same dorm as Lily for years and been her best friend for just as long. I knew she wasn't okay.

"Lily. Did you have another dream?" I asked her carefully, hoping she wouldn't scream at me like last time.

"Yeah." She admitted, moving closer to me. I turned on her lamp, hoping the other two wouldn't wake up, and wrapped my arms around her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I hoped she'd say yes, she'd been bottling everything up all last year and she finally cracked in our compartment on the way home. Luckily, Rose had gone to flirt with my brother and dragged Willow with her, so it was just me and Lily.

She nodded, "I just feel like, like I'm losing everybody." She admitted, "Petunia hates me, and Sev hates me, and I can't have a normal conversation with anyone without snapping at them. I don't want to be like this. And then, James doesn't shut up, and he's always picking on Sev for no reason. And everytime a guy tries to talk to me he curses them. And we get way to much homework. I can't cope with all this.

"Lils, you need to stop putting so much stress on yourself." I whispered, "Worrying about all that is not healthy."

She sniffled, her tears soaking the Ballycastle Bats Jersey I wore to bed.

"First of all, if Petunia and Severus don't love you for who you are then they're not worth it. Anyone who doesn't understand what you're going through isn't worth it. Let me handle James."

She laughed at that.

"And you do your homework weeks before it's due, pace yourself Lils. Don't sit for hours doing an essay that's due in three weeks." I came up with solutions to her problems.

"You're way better at comforting me than my parents." Lily said quietly, "They tell me to 'Learn from my mistakes' or 'Don't get involved' or if I'm crying they tell me I'm 'just tired' and that 'it will be okay' which it clearly won't.

"It will eventually, but from getting involved not staying out of it." I said softly.

She laughed "I don't see how that's possible."

I tried to ignore the bitterness in her voice, "Just imagine it okay, in a few years you'll be an accomplished healer, one of the greatest the world has ever seen. Ans everyone will come into St. Mungo's asking to see you. And you'll work, reasonable hours, saving lives, and then you'll go home to a loving husband and three beautiful kids."

"And they'll run out of the kitchen, telling you about their day. About how daddy taught them how to ride a broom, or how the cat scratched them but daddy fixed them up."

"And then you'll have dinner and put the kids to bed and have some quality time with your husband, who knows how to please a woman." She giggled hitting me lightly.

"And then, on your days off, you'll come and hang out with your best friend the rockstar." I grinned pointing to myself.

"And she'll tell you about how much she misses you and your kids, one of which will be her god-child" I hinted.

"And you'll go shopping and joke around, like it's first year again, and boys were still disgusting and the world outside the castle walls didn't exist." I sighed.

"And then," Lily interrupted "You'll come straight back to reality, where you're still in school, boys cause huge problems, and the world outside the castle walls does exist."

I sighed, "And then that happens, and it all goes downhill from there."

She sighed nodding, and we slowly drifted off to sleep.


End file.
